Taking the reins

Mike Sciacca

Ron Schwartz went to work Monday, his first official day on the job

as the new athletic director at Laguna Beach High.

“I’m already knee-deep in things,” he said, “but I’m really

looking forward to working at Laguna Beach High.”

Schwartz takes Laguna’s athletic reins from Mario Morales, who

left the school in June to accept a teaching and coaching position at

Long Beach Wilson High.

He said he learned of Laguna’s opening one Sunday morning when he

saw a “little blurb” in the Los Angeles Times, about Morales leaving

the school.

“So I applied and, lo and behold, here I am,” he mused.

Schwartz is no stranger to leading a high school athletic

department.

He comes to Laguna Beach having served the past two years as

athletic director at La Costa Canyon High in Carlsbad.

Overall, he has served as an athletic director for 10 years and

also has held positions as a head high school basketball coach and

assistant basketball coach at the collegiate level.

“I think it’s important to have a principal that you can work with

and it’s important that a principal has knowledge of athletics,”

Schwartz said of an athletic director’s role. “The two working

together is very important to an athletic program’s success.”

Schwartz said he signed a contract with the school on July 28.

“We’re very excited to have Ron at Laguna Beach High,” said Nancy

Blade, principal at Laguna Beach High. “He comes here highly

qualified and highly recommended. He’s all about reaching out to

serve the students and parents.”

Schwartz’s professional background is as colorful as his

personality.

Prior to coming out to California to take the athletic director’s

position at La Costa Canyon High, he served in the same role at St.

Francis Catholic High in Chicago, a school, he said, about “the same

size as Laguna Beach.”

“I have always been looking to move out this way,” he said. “When

the La Costa Canyon position became available, I thought, ‘Why not?’

“I really enjoyed my stay at La Costa Canyon. The principal and

coaches were just great to work with but I wasn’t having a good time

in the San Diego area. I just never took to it. I moved to Laguna

last Monday and I really, really like being here so far.”

Schwartz was at one time an assistant men’s basketball coach at

Cleveland State University in Ohio, the same school from which he

obtained his master’s degree in sports marketing.

He was an assistant at the school in the mid-1980s. In 1986, he

was on the Cleveland St. staff when the Vikings pulled a major upset

of tradition-rich Indiana in the NCAA men’s basketball tournament and

also was on the staff when the Vikings reached the National

Invitational Tournament on three occasions.

Outside the athletic arena, Schwartz produced concerts in the

entertainment field for nine years and his shows, held in a

4,000-seat venue he ran in Chicago, ranged from Alanis Morissette to

White Zombie.

“That was fun,” he said. “Really, it was all about organizing,

just as you would organize things as an AD or a coach. I worked with

a lot of big-name performers.”

Schwartz, who recently obtained his administrative credential from

UC Irvine, said he plans on setting up a meeting with the Laguna

Beach athletic coaches next week. He says he wants to take away as

many non-coaching duties from his coaches as possible.

“That will allow them to focus on coaching,” he said. “That’s what

they should be doing, period. I’m good at what I do and I have fun.

Organization is the key in running an athletic department, and that’s

something I’m good at. My main purpose for this meeting is to deliver

my message to them.”

But one of his main missions as athletic director, he said, is

simple.

“I want every athletic program at Laguna Beach to be competitive,”

he added. “That means teams will need to work hard and put in some

sweat time. But when it’s all over and done with, I want them to say

they had fun.

“Having fun in athletics is the bottom line.”